


The lives of the heart

by hope_calaris



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-04
Updated: 2011-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 21:19:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hope_calaris/pseuds/hope_calaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>i tell you, i'm writing. you ask about what? love, i say.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The lives of the heart

_Every story has its chapter in the desert, the long slide from kingdom to kingdom through the wilderness, where you learn things, where you're left to your own devices._

She first meets him when it’s raining. His hair is plastered to his face, and his expensive looking suit is drenched. It’s pouring, has been for hours, and she wonders why he didn’t bring an umbrella -- he looks like someone who usually remembers to bring his umbrella.

“I forgot to check the forecast,” he murmurs absent-minded when he stands in front of her desk, dripping all over the carpet.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

He doesn’t answer her, but his empty eyes make her heart ache.

 _And the world has taken my father, my friends._

From the start she knows that this case will be a clusterfuck of epic proportions. His story -- no, that’s not right, because although his story is one shiny example of contract bullshiting, it’s really his tone, the way his voice breaks every time he says _the_ name -- it’s this that makes her want to go on a rampage inside the office of the youngest billionaire in the world. And she isn’t a violent woman. She cooks for all her relatives once a month, she likes gardening, and she reads bedtime stories to her nieces. She can separate her work from her personal life, it’s what makes her so damn good in her job.

“I’m making lasagna tonight. Do you want to come over?” she asks him when it’s all over, when there’s nothing more to all of this but hundreds of broken pieces, and all of them are cutting into him.

 _I am learning to abandon the world before it can abandon me._

He tells her that he will move to Singapore. It takes her a moment to realize it’s the other end of the world, and then she doesn’t need to ask why.

 _Yesterday, upon the stair,  
I met a man who wasn’t there  
He wasn’t there again today  
I wish, I wish he’d go away... _

She doesn’t really understand it, but she’s still his lawyer afterwards -- which means that all things concerning _the company_ also land on her desk.

It’s the fifth invitation to a shareholder meeting, and the second one to this particular. It’s handwritten.

The letter is open on her desk, and she doesn’t dare to touch it, as if it will crumble to tiny pieces never to be found again if she puts her fingerprints on it more than strictly necessary.

It takes her most of the day and another rainstorm to finally pick up the phone.

“Good morning,” she says, “I got a letter for you.”

 _stuck in an unnamed place  
half way between love and in love,  
you call me late at night and ask  
if i'm sleeping_

He asks her if he should go to the shareholder meeting. She doesn’t see him, but his voice sounds nervous, and she wishes she knew what to say.

“Do you want to?” she asks back.

 _There is a sound for being  
unable to forget, yet humming  
small melodies of hope_

She doesn’t know what to make of it. He hasn’t moved back to the States -- yet, but she can hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes when they meet for lunch. It’s a vague idea, she knows, one that has settled in the back of his mind and has no clear outline. Only a pale image of happier times, but she sees how hope draws the shape again and again and fills it with colors.

She doesn’t want him to get hurt again, she cares too much for him, but this -- this is something new. She has seen him angry, defeated, tired, withdrawn, but she has never seen him happy. And he looks happy now, even though he tries his hardest not to smile too much. But hope is a stubborn thing, she knows, and hope … it looks beautiful on his face. She has always known that he’s a handsome man, but hope takes years off his face and adds something that draws people to him.

“You take care of yourself, okay?” she says after dessert, and he looks grateful when he nods.

 _Let me begin again_

It’s not as if she’s stalking the (second, her assistant corrects her) youngest billionaire in the world, she just wants to make sure he isn’t planning anything involving contracts and company shares.  She likes to be prepared. However, she can’t find anything. At least nothing that would imply anything resulting in a move to the moon. She even has to laugh when she checks the bilionaire’s facebook page and his relationship status reads _hopeful_.

“One of your daughters is a realtor, isn’t she?” she gets a phone call from Singapore. “I want to move back to the States.”

She can’t say she’s really surprised.

 _what I’m telling you is  
Yes Yes Yes_

Half a year later, her daughter tells her he has sold the house again. For a moment, her heart feels the familiar ache, but then her daughter tells her something about a lovely house in Palo Alto, and she smiles.

 _And then the day came,  
when the risk  
to remain tight  
in a bud  
was more painful  
than the risk  
it took  
to Blossom._

 _\- fin_

**Author's Note:**

> Poems used:  
> Antigonish by Hughes Mearns  
> Let me begin again by Philip Levine  
> Driving, not washing by Richard Siken  
> I am learning to abandon the world by Linda Pastan  
> God says Yes to me by Kaitlin Haught  
> The Space between by Elena Georgiou  
> Parts of Speech by Kapka Kassabova  
> Risk by Anaïs Nin  
> The lives of the heart by Jane Hirshfield


End file.
